This Is It.... an Epiphany.

Take a look around you right now.  What do you see?  For me, it's my mostly decorated living room, if I am honest a little bit of a mess.  If I look deeper into my life I see the beginning of a few things: friendships, this house, other things.  I see the deepening of a few things: my business, my faith, other things.  I see the completion of a few things: my grief process, the love of my husband, a few friendships, other things.

What else do you see?  Do you see your gifts?  Do you see the desires you have for your life?  Do you see the people around you who are hurting?  Do you see an opportunity?  What is it that is stopping you from acting on the things you see?

Guess what, kids?  This is it.  This is your life.  This life is your ministry.  This is how God wants to use you - He wants to use you right here and now; He wants to be seen in your life right now.

I noticed the other day when I re-read what I had written about wondering how God wanted to use me (in that whiny post a few days ago about being single) that it occurred to me that He is using me.  He's using me right now.

My friend Jennifer said to me the other day, "You're impatient because you want things the way you envision them. Relax and know that things are happening the way God envisions them."  Control freaks unite, but my friends, THIS is really crazy good advice.

I don't know what tomorrow brings.  Well, I know some of the things that tomorrow brings.  It's cold here and I have market in a rather cold building for 6 hours and then I am singing in a Christmas cantata.  Tomorrow will bring laughter with the coffee guy who has the booth next to mine.  It will bring friends and people I care about deeply to my booth for hugs and encouragement and advice... which will go both ways.  Tomorrow will bring an opportunity for me to spend more than a few moments in prayer and worship.  Tomorrow brings time to write, time to relax, probably a hot bath.

What I don't know about tomorrow is exactly how God will use me.  I won't know even in the moment how the words that I use might impact the people I meet and speak to, or the people who will overhear them.  My job, my ministry will be to be open to God using me, willing to be used, and submissive to the urging of the Holy Spirit to say what I might be directed to say or act how I am directed to act.  I probably won't know how things will work out.  Because so often the ministry of our lives isn't something we see the affect of in others.

So again, this is it.  THIS.  Right here?  This is your life.  If you want God to use you and to have a ministry?  You have one.  That's your life.  That desire comes from Him.  Get to know Him.  Establish and maintain a daily, intimate, humble relationship with Him.  I am going to give you a huge piece of advise here too: Pray that God purge you of the crap in your life that you are hiding.  Stop the sin that is in your life and seek to live a blameless life.  Be honest with yourself about who you are, be open and vulnerable to God and to the people who are around you (I recommend finding an accountability partner who you both trust and is trustworthy).  Life is complicated, but be as vulnerable and open as you can be with people in your life.  Be gentle with the people you meet because I guarantee they are going through stuff.  Care about people with everything you have available to you.  This is your ministry.

I have been reading a few books about faith, and in one, "Jesus Manifest" the authors talk about Jesus' ministry (which as Christians we are to emulate).  Jesus went about his day and he kinda just hung out.  He chatted with people.  He said things that had impact because he had constant contact and relationship with Father God and he cared about people.  He spoke life to people.  He loved on them in friendship.  He didn't condemn them.  He showed them that there was forgiveness and a pathway out of the hurt and pain and destruction of their lives. He showed them that there was opportunity for more and for relationship with God through his sacrifice.

So, let your life be a ministry.  Your life is your ministry.  Seek relationship with Jesus, depth of relationship with God.  Be blessed and be a blessing my dear friends.

Grief (part eleventy) and moving on and loneliness.

I'm doing ok, and then I'm not.

It is so hard, so unbelievably hard to miss someone like this.  I miss someone who got me in a way that so very few do, and I can't do anything at all to fix it.

I know that today's tears are connected to a few things:  My mom called today and we talked about him.  I'm at that point in my hormonal cycle where a low day is typical.  I didn't get accomplished what I wanted to do today.  A new man with whom I'd started conversing showed that his character wasn't worthy of me.  I found a photo that had been stuck in a book.  I could go on... but it's circumstantial.

I am impatient.  I am impatient with myself and I am impatient with God.  I'm very productive, huh?  I know that this is all a timing issue.  I've proven very little and it's just barely been six months back into the depth of faith - I am still rocky soil being churned... and the churn has slowed because the big surface rocks have been picked and tossed into the pile of forgiveness, and yet I am not quite fertile soil.  I don't know how long that takes, how many tests and trials nor how much digging and watering needs to happen before I am, but there we go.

Sigh.

I pray for my relationship with God to be enough for me.  I pray that He show me, work on ME to see Him and how much He loves me.  The issue is me.  I don't know if it's a good thing that it's a daily request or not...  But I am desperate for Him.

I like that I know who I am, I like that I actually like me.  God has blessed me with a lot of great stuff, and as it says, to whom much is given, much is required.  I'm wanting so much to be ready for whatever that is, whatever His plan is for my life.  I really want God to be enough, and yet I desire intimacy with another human being - with a man - which may not ever be fulfilled again.

It's a struggle that I am trying to be honest about because I know that I am not alone.  I WANT God to be enough.  I do.  But I am honest about the other aspects too.  I am a human woman.  I mean, in Genesis God says that it's not good that man be alone so he creates woman for him and makes her out of his side so they will cling together.  I want to cling to God, but I want to cling with someone to God.  My fear is that I've had mine and he went away.  My fear is that I will be single forever.

I know I am not the only single woman who has had that fear.  When I was single, before those nearly 15 years of marriage, I feared that I would never marry.  I find that fear is back and I think about this... is that my thorn in my side?  What if I not only shouldn't have been married, but that I never was to be married - and will never be married again.  I've been told that it's not something that I should think about, let alone worry about.  I'm told that if God has someone for me, He'll bring that man to me.

And when that's said I want to shout, "I KNOW!!"  and "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU ARE MARRIED."  It's a cold comfort to know that God has this in His plan - whatever it is... because I hurt now.  Because I am lonely now.  Because life is hard now.  I ache now.  I want things now.  ME!  Heh, I am a toddler.  I know it.

But, I am honest about it.  I am honest when I say that I am seeking God for change in my heart.  I am honest, and open, and vulnerable because this point of raw human is where I find that God reaches me, where I can accept where He has me now.  Being vulnerable isn't always pleasant, but I don't know how to be anything other than this.

So, single woman?  I get it.  You pray for me, I'll pray for you.  I'll pray that God have a spectacular man for you, who is worthy of you and partnering with you in marriage.  I hope you will pray that for me too... but above all else, let's pray for each other that God's will be done in our lives, marriage or not.  And let's pray for each other that we are fulfilled in our relationship with Jesus first, foremost and solidly.

Amen.

Thanksgiving

Oh, dear friends.  What a merciful God we have.

I pursue most things in my life doggedly until I have a depth of understanding or a grasp on the thing so that then I might then relax in the depth of knowledge attained.  My relationship with God has been no different - I've been pursuing personal purity and wholeness and holiness like it has been my job.

I've wanted to fall in love with Jesus in a way I'd heard other people talk about, the depth of which I'd not ever achieved in my personal relationship with Him.  That's been my prayer of late: Teach me to fall in love with you.  And it is about time spent and listening to the object of affection and allowing Him to influence my life in the way that I would let a friend do.

Today is Thanksgiving Day.  I awoke today to a plan change and in prayer for the reason for my plan change.  Then I spent the morning doing a bit of work after reading some in my Bible and praying for a few friends in difficult situations.  I spoke to my mom, sisters, nieces, nephews and my brother-in-law - all of whom I love very much but am unlikely to see for a year.  Then I went to a new acquaintance's house for Thanksgiving dinner and, as we do on Thanksgiving ate too much.  Upon arriving home, I started to ache in loneliness.  I miss having a 'someone' to share my days and nights, my triumphs and trials, my sorrows and joys with and a someone is not in the immediate offing.

It would be easy to have fallen into a pity party.  I've done it so often in the last 19 months, the woe of woe is me, the sitting in my sack cloth and ashes.  Instead, I cried out to God.  I was honest with where I was.  I was open and vulnerable and ached and blubbered and asked for him to fill me. Please fill me with some kind of hope.  And do you know what?  He did.  I wish I could describe with any kind  words that might make sense to the type of experience it was.

Afterwards, I picked up my guitar and bawled through worship songs, my tender heart soft in praise.  I am so thankful that when I reach out to Jesus, I am met.  It's not been an easy road and it's not always been pleasant, but I am at a place where I feel confident that when I need Him (every day, every moment) that I am met.  It's not that I am so special, but I am doggedly pursuing a deeper and deeper relationship with Jesus.  I don't ever want anything or anyone to come before that relationship.

The point of the post, friends, is that if you want it, you can have this too.  I don't know if your relationship with Jesus will look like mine, I've known other people who've had relationships different than mine but no less deep - we each as individuals have different needs - but I know if you seek Him, He will be found by you.  And today, I am so very thankful that it is so true.

Inside Out.

God, Bless Joan.

I showed up to worship practice last week with nothing.  And when I say nothing, I mean it. I had come to the end of my everything.  I had absolutely nothing to give - to myself even.  The thing I'd been hiding was unable to be hidden any longer and the truth of it all came tumbling out into her arms.  I confessed.  I was turned inside out.

I don't know if you've ever had an accountability person, but I was gifted one last week.  And thank GOD that I was, because I needed one.  She didn't let me play it off.  She didn't let me obscure it.  She pushed at me to be honest and open and accountable and I was.

I've a road ahead of me, it's not going to be especially easy, but it's full of Grace.  Because like everyone else, I struggle with sin.  Because it's really not germane to the conversation, I won't reveal the specifics of it here, but we all struggle with sin, don't we?  Or, am I alone in being the sole broken follower of Jesus?  Somehow, I don't think I am.  I guess we can all look at our lives and acknowledge that there is sin there that we might not be able to examine and confess, but when we are able to and when we do, I hope it is met with peace and grace as I was.  A lot of the time when we look at the opportunity to confess, to bare our souls it is terrifying (I know it was for me).  What I am surprised to find out is that it's terrifically freeing.  Plus?  Biblical:

James 5: 16, 19-20
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whomever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Confession and accountability are important.  God wants to work in us, and through us.

It's now just been a week since my confession.  Though I still struggle with some of the emotional consequences of my sin (and the confession) I have been flooded with peace.  Just today I feel like I've walked through a door from shame and embarrassment to a place where I can see the purpose of releasing this thing I've been holding onto.  God has been meeting me in my daily study, there have been words of encouragement and support.  There's been hope for my future.

I don't know what it is that God is calling me to fully yet, but I feel like the last vestiges that were holding me back from finding out are gone.  It's been awhile since I've felt settled, but I feel settled and on the verge of being stirred up again for the next adventure in following Jesus.

I hope you enjoy the same freedom and the same adventure.

And up until now in this blog, I've not offered this which has been remiss on my part.  If you have not found salvation through Jesus, may I offer to you the opportunity to know Him?  It's as simple as accepting a gift, as honest as saying "I've failed.  I need you, Jesus.  I need the salvation you've paid for by your death and resurrection.  Please fill me up."

By the way, if you are praying that for the first time or again and want to talk with someone?  Find me.  I check the comments here.  I'd love to talk with you, one sinner saved by Grace to another.

Speak to me.

I've never really been good at studying the Bible on my own.  I don't know if I am too literal, or if the writing style is just dry to me or what, but I have always sat in awe of those who read a verse and get something profound and deep and applicable to their lives or situations. 

I've always been the follower who gets SO MUCH out of a sermon.  I love it when friends show me a scripture reference that they have had some insights into which touched them.  It touches me too.  Here's the thing though, I want to get my own insights.  I want God to touch me too through his word, I want to hear something direct.

This week, I've been really seeking how to fall in love with Jesus.  I don't know how to express it, but I want a deeper relationship, and the default in my relationship isn't with Jesus, it's with me... so how do you fall in love?  Yeah, I don't know either.  Except I think it's intentional spending time with someone and seeing and appreciating who they are.

So, I've been intentional and reading the Bible, praying, worshiping.  Still, the Bible has been dry and *sigh* didn't speak to me much.  I've used Bible studies - books written by other people who have gotten some insight in a topic or another.  Don't get me wrong, I get stuff and I am blessed by the words on paper, but I want MY OWN.  (I'm so selfish)  And because I do, I keep trying.

So this morning, I wake up.  I stretch.  I reach over to grab my Bible and last night I'd decided I'd start with the book of Luke, wherein my pastor had taken a reference on Sunday and I liked it so... I thought I would start there.  Chapter 1, le sigh.  Chapter 2, nada.  Pbbbbt.

Urgh.

Why can't *I* have some deep insight into SOMETHING, God.  Why can't you speak to ME too?  Why I can't get something for me out of your Word.  Please speak to me here?  I just want to know what you want to say to me.  I want to fall in love with you like I see other people fall in love with you.  Please speak to me.

And no kidding, I wrote the above in my journal and my eyes alight on Jeremiah 3:33 that was also referenced in Sunday's sermon.  I remember that it's a verse that I wanted to look at again.  So I go to turn there and read.

Except I don't really turn there.  I turn to Jeremiah 33.  And I start reading.  And I start crying.  And I am touched... by words that are the words *I* need. 

I don't mean this to sound trite, but it's going to... sometimes the answer comes when you don't expect it to come.  I do know that God meets our needs, he meets my needs... and I believe he'll meet your needs.  Take time to ask.  Take time to listen.... especially the listen part. 

And Then Comes Peace...

Today, peace arrived.  It came on the heels of another bout of tears, which came on the heels of some difficult news and boundary setting.

Peace arrived while on my knees, and with the clarity of the familiar.  The blade of Truth cut through the crap I've let build around my heart in expectation and demand.  The fresh air of it both refreshing and intimidating.  Another piece of the puzzle was being delivered and placed which changed and enhanced the picture of what is being created in me.

A breakthrough, a plan, a call came today.  I am full of relief and peace.

I am putting this here as a placeholder for when I forget.  My personal journal contains the details for myself, this post is intended for a reference point for when my heart is weary and my way gets obscured. 

This post is intended to give hope. 

I know that there are others of you who are struggling with a few different things right now.  I want you to be encouraged that though we struggle there is peace.  I want you to be encouraged with me. 

This life with Jesus that we have accepted, this walk that we choose is never going to be easy.  Every day it's going to be hard, and every day we will to some extent fail.  This is the blessing of forgiveness.  If anyone tells you that this is easy, they are lying to you.  Yes, his burden is light - yet it's still a burden... and there is peace.  There is joy in the journey.  There is hope in Jesus.  There is love abundant.  There is need of patience - both with ourselves, with God, with others.  There are opportunities to be kind.  God is gentle with us.  In our walk we learn self-control, because we rely on God's boundaries. 

Thank you for being patient with me in my struggle.  Thank you for reading here and for sharing with me what you are struggling with, so that we can encourage each other in Jesus.

Broken

I am broken.  I am a mess.  I am lost and desperate.  It's kind-of a good place.

I'm struggling to find a way to explain this to my non-Churchy friends... but this place of brokenness brings me a desperation to have a deeper relationship with Jesus.  I know that there is an answer to my heartache and desperation that is contained in my relationship with God.  I know what there is a plan, answers, and comfort contained in that relationship - I've experienced it before, over and over again.

Again I am here, on my knees; desperate and searching for the comfort that only a deeper relationship with Jesus can provide.  I read what I write and I realize how difficult a concept this is and the closest I can compare it to is falling in love with someone.  How as you go deeper into your relationship with the person you are craving just knowing them better comforts you, excites you, energizes you, softens you... and you find you want to expose your vulnerabilities in the trustworthy person.  You want them to see all of your flaws and defects, your lack and failures to see if they can handle who you see yourself as in your lowest and basest form.  If you are exceptionally blessed, that person sees you as a beautiful creation anyway... they love you even more because of your flaws.  THAT, my friends, is what a real relationship with Jesus is, in my experience.

Is it any wonder I am desperate for more depth and more intimacy?

There have been a few things that have really touched me in the last few days as true and like Edmund in "The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader" when Aslan cuts the dragon's body off of him, have cut my heart so deeply and have been peeling layer, after layer, after layer off of me - things that are holding me back from depth of intimacy. 

I wrote the above a few days ago.  I've been talking to my friend J, my friend G, my MIL, and my sister and asking them to pray for me.  I've been seeking God, again, more.  I want depth and intimacy.

IF YOU KNOW GOD HAS CHOSEN YOU... don’t be surprised if you are put through fires that expose weaknesses in your character. This is God’s mercy at work in your life. If He placed you in a powerful position without first removing the dross from your life, that defect would show up later and cripple your work or ministry. Thank God for the fiery experiences that cause you to see the character defects in your life so they can be dealt with and removed! -- RICK RENNER (copied from his FaceBook status)

So, there is stuff that is happening in me, the refining process is working and it's (to be honest) insanely painful and yet peaceful.   I wish I could express all of it in a way that makes any sort of sense, but I can't yet.  I'm sure I'll edit it later.